Abusive dad, divorced at twenty-three, and crippling OCD tendencies? Umm, this is not what I ordered… Can I get a refund?

 

 

I guess I’ll start with getting the technical stuff out of the way. I have been told by therapists that I have extreme anxiety and OCD tendencies. I am not diagnosed with full blown OCD, and I want to make that clear because I definitely don’t want to disrespect people who have OCD

 

Okay, here goes nothing… Yes, I had an abusive dad, I got divorced at twenty-three, and my OCD tendencies make it hard to function in everyday life, but “hard” doesn’t mean “impossible,” so I don’t let it stop me. Well… okay, credit where credit’s due, God, doesn’t let it stop me. 

Now, the obvious question, is there a connection between the abuse, divorce, and anxiety…? Hmm, yes! But we’ll dive into all of that when we get there. First, I have to go way back. I apologize if the timeline gets messy at all. I’m pulling up memories from childhood, and, as we all know, those can get hazy. 

 

Early Severe Anxious Tendencies

 

When I was somewhere around ten, my mom told me not to walk on the carpet with dirty feet. She was in the middle of shampooing it, which took two days, and it was still wet, so, understandably, she didn’t want mud tracked all over it. To any “ordinary” kid this wouldn’t be that big of a request; wipe your feet before you come inside, but to me “little requests” don’t really exist. 

            On beautiful summer days, my friends and I would run from the lushes green grass that covered my backyard onto the white carpet of the house constantly, and this particular day was no exception my blonde haired, blue eyed friend and I were in and out of the house as we played. I remember obsessively checking my feet when I was on the carpeting, and even asking my friend and my mom if they looked clean, to which my friend patiently replied that they were, but it was clear that she knew I was obsessing. 

The fear of tracking dirt onto the carpet gripped me. It wasn’t fear of my mother being mad at me. She had asked us to be careful, but she was nowhere near as obsessive as me. It was just the fear of doing something wrong, the fear that I would do something bad.

It may not sound like the biggest challenge in the world, but that is my first memory of being scared to walk across the floor, and in high school, that would prove to be one of my biggest challenges. When my friends were worried about their AP calc grades and after school sports, I was struggling to get from one end of the room to the other, and the fear of doing something bad is something I still struggle with every day.

 

 

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